Mass Bow Hunters Archive

The Mass Bowhunters has set up a new email specifically for memberships. If you have any membership questions (when renewal is due, need a new card, never got a card or new membership kit) please email memberships@massbowhunters.com.

Please also email your contact information to this address (email, phone & mailing address) and qualify for a free decal which can be picked up at either Sportsman’s Show or the Annual Banquet.

Your privacy is important to us. The MBA does not share or sell its membership’s email or contact information. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to MBA emailings, please email memberships@massbowhunters.com and put “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject area.

By Mark Blazis
Reprinted with permission of the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette

It looks like the record book may have to be revised. Another enormous whitetail has been taken in Central Mass, but this one has national significance.

When the official measurements come in, it may prove to be the largest-antlered whitetail ever arrowed in Massachusetts, as well as one of the largest ever taken in North America.

The story that the still-stunned and humble archer was willing to share with me last night provides a lesson on how to shoot a giant.

On Nov. 14, during the peak of the rut, Rutland’s Dan Daigle — hunting his hometown — reached his Lone Wolf hang-on stand about 3:20 p.m. Twenty-five feet up, covered in Scentlock camo, painted facially and well-hidden in a hemlock, he was virtually invisible. More important, he was undetectable by odor, too, with the north-northeast wind in his face carrying his scent away from the direction his deer would come.

Daigle described himself as “anal” about being as scent-free as possible, bathing prior to every hunt with scent-free soap and covering his body with carbon fiber, scent-absorbing clothing.

A very humble gentleman who fully appreciates the enormity of his accomplishment, Daigle attributed much of his success to luck. But the reality is that he worked hard and skillfully to harvest this magnificent animal. This exceptional kill was no fluke. He previously had taken several other bucks locally that many of us would consider the deer of a lifetime.

Daigle’s home memorializes each of his remarkable kills, including bucks scoring in the 140s from Princeton and Holden, and a 151-inch buck from Rutland. This accomplished archer hunts in big-deer territory having excellent nutrition and superior genetics.

His record-book hunt actually began early last August.

Read the full story here: http://www.telegram.com/article/20121127/COLUMN10/111279968/-1/column